Alan Watts

It is obvious to any informed student of the history and psychology of religion that Jesus was one, of many, who had an intense experience of cosmic consciousness- of the vivid realization that oneself is a manifestation of the eternal energy of the universe, the basic "I am." But it is very hard to express this experience when the only religious imagery at your disposal conceives that "I am" as an all-knowing and all-powerful monarch, autocrat, and beneficent tyrant enthroned in a court of adoring subjects. In such a cultural context, you cannot say "I am God" without being accused of subversion, insubordination, megalomania, arrogance, and blasphemy. Yeht that was why Jesus was crucified.

Alan Watts